SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



845 



this implication would be less promi- 

 nent if the phrase were changed to 

 "survival of the fittest." From the 

 very first, however, he recognized 

 that the difference between the two 

 terms in this respect was, if we may 

 so express it, purely quantitative ; 

 and he took care to make it clear 

 that by " the fittest " he did not in 

 the least intend to signify any form 

 of ideal or subjective'fitness, but sim- 

 ply a superior degree of adaptation, 

 as a matter of actual fact, to environ- 

 ing conditions. The conditions at 

 any given moment are as they are, 

 and the "fitness*' of any particular 

 organism is such a correspondence 

 with those conditions as permits and 

 favors its perpetuation. The condi- 

 tions do not create fitness ; they 

 merely eliminate unfitness; nor does 

 Mr. Spencer conceive any agency 

 as producing ab extra the fitness 

 which enables an organism or a 

 number of organisms to survive. 

 He differs, however, from what is 

 perhaps the dominant school of biol- 

 ogy to-day, in holding that the higher 

 forms of organic life are, as he ex- 

 presses it, " directly equilibrated " 

 with their surroundings through the 

 inheritance of physical features re- 

 sulting from effort and habit. 



To whatever cause it may be at- 

 tributed, few writers whose intellec- 

 tual activity has extended over so 

 long a term of years as Mr. Spencer's 

 have been so consistent in their ut- 

 terances at different stages as he. 

 The "Synthetic Philosophy " is the 



realization of a scheme of thought 

 no less wonderful in its coherence 

 and solidity than in its compass, the 

 author having planted himself from 

 the first at a point of view which 

 erave him a clear command of his 

 entire field. To say that no other 

 system of thought equally compre- 

 hensive and equally coherent exists 

 in the world to-day would be to 

 make a statement which few compe- 

 tent and dispassionate authorities 

 would deny. Notwithstanding this, 

 there are writers not a few, particu- 

 larly of the class " who write with 

 ease," who. as we said at the outset, 

 have a propensity for misunderstand- 

 ing Mr. Spencer, and who conse- 

 quently accuse him of inconsisten- 

 cies and self-contradictions for which 

 nothing that he has ever said affords 

 any warrant. One of these gentle- 

 men is the Duke of Argyll, who has 

 lately offered the world another 

 superfluous book under the title cf 

 Organic Evolution Cross examined. 

 The duke particularly concerns him- 

 self with Mr. Spencer's teaching in 

 regard to the " survival of the fit- 

 test," and Mr. Spencer, in the col- 

 umns of Nature, replies to him in a 

 brief but sufficient manner. It is 

 safe to say that Mr. Spencer's philos- 

 ophy will show Cyclopean remains 

 generations after the name of his 

 ducal critic shall have passed forever 

 into the mists of oblivion; and the 

 " survival of the fittest " will thus be 

 illustrated in a sense in which Mr. 

 Spencer himself never used the words. 



Scientific %iUxntuxz. 



SPECIAL BOOKS. 



The study of the methods through which the topographical features 

 and rock forms of particular districts have been worked out, as presented 

 in numerous popular monographs, is a fascinating one ; and we can hardly 

 doubt that many persons who would never otherwise have thought of it 



